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Brilliant use of hyperbole. This seems to be a solution to the growing need to serve fast responses to an increasing volume of information requests such as generated by Open Banking and customer data analysis.

In terms of volumes the CTO quote could imply that customers are each generating a billion plus "digital transactions" which of course they won't be personally.

But what do we mean by "digital transactions"? Do we mean calls on the servers (enquiries) rather than actual debit and credit transactions to a ledger. Some of these "digital transactions" will be customer generated but others not.

Sloppy language and poor terminology make for meaningless statements. 

Nationwide seem to be keeping up by allowing faster responses to account information requests (which is good) but this is not cutting edge. It's merely staying in the game.

Cutting edge doesn't need a Speed Layer.

Unless I'm mistaken the main problems from the wirecard accounting fraud impacted issuers using wirecard and their customers rather than acquirers. Having multiple issuers of cards doesn't seem to be a valid solution but, whatever the background regulators and the card networks need to learn lessons and find solutions so that consumers can access their money. 

Fingers will rightly point at auditors and validating material matters will always be critical and an essential part of any effective audit. But for as long as auditors rely on the representations of management and management can point to the outcome of audits (based on their own representations) there will be a vicious circle to be broken. 

The account offers a package of benefits of which account aggregation is one. Once more a misleading and unbalanced headline from Finextra. Your "journalism" and balance needs to improve to be taken seriously.

Any suggestion that these services have been introduced for “covert customer acquisition” would be somewhat disingenuous, they are there to fill a real need. This NatWest service seems however to imitate the Starling service without its key advantages for customer oversight and control. True, secondary cards have been a feature on credit cards for decades but what was lacking was both true real time information on the spend as it was incurred, the limitation on types of spend and the ability of the customer to turn it off instantly.

Historically secondary cards have often been given to family members not to unrelated individuals whose only connection is via a contract of employment of which they may not be the principal.

Without the ability to see spend as it happens and turn it on and off instantly at will, you are essentially relying on trust not control. I doubt that NatWest have this fully covered and essentially once the card is topped up, the control on spend is limited by value only. The comment by NatWest that “To enhance security, the carers card will be associated with the customer’s existing bank account but kept separate on the bank’s systems” doesn’t give any clue to controls the customer has what information on spend they will have and when. Some clarity from NatWest on this would be welcome.

I am also concerned that by allowing access to cash, as NatWest does, you are potentially placing the carer in an invidious position. It is a key principle of many carer's contracts of employment that they will not handle their client’s cash. To do so could render them liable to dismissal.

Both these services are well intentioned and can be helpful, but any professional carer would be well advised to check carefully with their employer first that using these services is permitted. (Get this in writing from your Employer if their published policy isn’t clear). Those giving access to their money need both to trust the individual they choose and to understand the controls that are in place.

Liability for loss is likely to rest principally with the customer who will often be vulnerable.

The alternative of course would be to scrap the toll or suspend it. It is a tax on local economic activity which at this time will be depressed anyway. Something for the Humber Bridge Board to consider perhaps.

First of the legacy banks maybe but not first. 

Over on Sifted https://sifted.eu/articles/tandem-fundraise-2020-cto-left/ there's an interview with Knox where he explains that:

"We ended up attracting the wrong customers...The people who are good at saving money are actually the people who are fuc**ng loaded... We realised we were going to have to let those guys go. They were losing us money." 

Sounds like the product was designed to lose money from the start but a sustainable and attractive product may be hard to design.

I'm not sure that the new model is much better in terms of profitability. With no interest charges, it depends on whether the £72 a year fee is enough cover the credit risk and funding costs plus the cashback they are paying!

I do hope that Tandem have worked it out properly this time and that they don't end up attracting another sort of "wrong customer" who maxes out on interest free credit.

It seems that HSBC has over 200 branches in the territory so the 8 affected is not at all many.

While we hope that the protests and concerns about citizens rights are resolved  this is hardly news.

The trade "war" and global uncertainty is more likely to damage trade and the banks that facilitate it but that doesn't seem to make headlines.

What can you tell us about how customers and banks are using technology to overcome  the difficulties rather than about the small number of branch closures? (NB Hong Kong is not a country ). 

We wish Deutsch and its staff well but in addition to changing the Bank they need to change Germany's disposition to cash and corporate structure to succeed, Digitisation  will bring efficiencies but until the Banks capturee more day to day transactions and corporate governance in enterprise is evolved the German market will remain challenging. Retrenchment to that market is not necessarily the answer.

The statements at the start of this article are somewhat misleading. Open Banking allows customers to authorise their data to be shared with the third parties.

Third party providers will not get blanket access to the data and no bank will be "forced" to provide their customer's data if their customer has not authorised it.

Certainly if the financial institutions can't offer their individual customers innovative services from the data they hold for them customers will get to provide their data to those who will. It is both a threat and opportunity.

As Walter Wriston intimated it's information about money thats important and financial institutions who haven't begun offering customers insights into their money will surely suffer.